Page 37 of A Baby for the Beast (Beastverse #3)

Lucas

Six Years Later

G o find them.

They're coming to dinner.

I don't want dinner. I want my girls.

"Uncle Luke?" Sam's eldest daughter, Evie, approaches me with a little plastic hair accessories case, and Remus shuts up about going and finding Hayley and Tess. "Can I do your hair?"

"Yeah, get up here, kiddo," I say, pushing away from the extra-large patio table we all chipped in to get Janie a couple of years ago because the family's grown a lot.

So far, it's Henry, Sarah, and me out here waiting for Janie and Sam to bring out the last of the food. Hayley and Tess will be here, hopefully soon, because I'm starting to get antsy with how long they've been gone.

Has it only been for the weekend? Sure. They're just visiting Hayley's parents, but I miss them like hell.

Usually, I go with them because I hate being away from the girls, but there was a competition this weekend for the kids I help train.

I'd already volunteered for the event before Hayley made plans to go out of town.

Evie stands on my thighs while I hold up her little plastic case of the world's tiniest hair ties.

I only know they're actually for hair because I've had to fight with the damn things so often when getting Tess dressed up for her little dance classes.

She fights too, and she's damn good at it for being six, but Hayley wants her to do whatever her little six-year-old heart desires, which means dance classes on Wednesday and Fridays and fighting on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Who knows, maybe in a couple of years we'll add a team sport to the mix just to keep our schedules packed.

"What style are we going with?" I ask Evie, who's doing more hair pulling than actually getting the rubber bands around my hair.

I've let it grow out since I stopped fighting. I don't need to tie it back in a bun like Henry, but it has enough length that Hayley can grab onto something when we're in the nest. It also means that Sam's girls have realized they can tie it into the tiniest pony tails and make me look like a dork.

It makes our omega happy, though.

I know, buddy.

"You're going to be a princess," Evie says. She watches for my reaction, and I make sure to give her an over-exaggerated gasp of surprise and a smile.

"You better make me a pretty princess," I whisper to her. "My mate is going to be here soon."

Janie and Sam set the rest of the food on the table before telling us to dig in. Lilah and Scott aren't out here yet, but he was putting off enough pheromones earlier when they were on the couch that we had to come outside because Remus was getting antsy.

We need our omega and our daughter back so we can just take them home. It'll help to calm him down a bit once he knows they're safe and nothing happened to them while they were gone. Nothing ever does, but Remus is a worrier.

The two most important people in the whole world have been out of my sight for days. You should be a little more worried, or maybe I just love them more.

"Oh, forgot my beer," Henry says.

"Lilah and Scott are still in there," Sarah calls after him right before he pushes the sliding glass door open.

He waves behind him, ignoring the warning that everyone at the table except for him seemed to understand. Sarah sighs and shakes her head, and I laugh at what Henry probably just interrupted.

A minute later, Henry comes walking back out, the highs of his cheeks scarlet and his face looking properly scandalized. I smirk at him because even Remus picked up on what Sarah was warning him about, and we're still terribly clueless when it comes to sex talk most of the time.

"What'd you walk in on?" I ask.

Henry shakes his head, his blush growing. I'm sure I might sound like I'm trying to antagonize him, but I have a kid tying my hair up and torturing me with how bad her motor skills are.

"Something he's not going to talk about in front of my daughters," Sam says, his dad voice coming out and earning him a swoony look from Janie.

Henry closes his mouth. I doubt he was going to actually tell us what he saw, and I doubt we'd left Lilah and Scott in there long enough to do more than some heavy petting.

Still, that's not something Henry will say around the kids.

He and Sarah censor themselves more than the rest of us when it comes to that kind of thing.

"Is Jace coming tonight?" Janie asks, changing the subject.

I don't pay much attention to the conversation going on around the table because Evie is humming along as she pulls at my hair, causing me to have to put on a strong face and not wince.

Not because I think she'd care, but because I know any of the other alphas out here will love to just give me a hard time for getting hurt by a five-year-old.

"Where are the girls?" Henry asks me, but his attention is grabbed by a frumpled Fenrir and Lilah coming out of the house and joining everyone at the table.

Which is fine, if he thought about it for a second would remember that I've done nothing but bitch and moan all weekend because they weren't here.

I even spent most of yesterday at the coffee shop because I needed someone to distract me.

Sure, he also put me to work helping the younger alphas he had working at the bakery yesterday, but it did help me get through the day without letting Remus out to find our mate and daughter.

There's some ribbing happening between the adults at the table, but I don't pay any attention to that. Not when I can hear the sound of a car pulling up in front of the house. Okay, technically, it could be a car pulling up for any of Sam and Janie's neighbors, too, but I want it to be Hayley.

"Time for me to go," I tell Evie, lifting her up and settling her in the chair I'm vacating.

I don't even say goodbye to anyone at the table, not that I could if I wanted to, because Remus is taking over, not even being kind about it either.

One second, I'm in control of our legs walking around the side of the house, and the next, Remus is practically sprinting around, tugging little rubber bands out of our hair as he does.

Hayley's bent down, leaning into the backseat of the car to help Tess with something. Remus doesn't give her a second to stand up or even register he's there before he's wrapping his arms around her waist and tugging her to him, our purr filling the air around us.

"I'm happy to see you, too," Hayley laughs as Remus pulls her away from the car. "Your daughter needs to put her shoes on, though."

" No, " Remus says, nipping at Hayley's neck once before swatting her backside and taking her place, leaning into the car.

" How was your nana's? " Remus asks as he starts buckling Tess back into the booster seat.

"Fun, but Momma said she missed you all the time."

Remus grins at the admission. Not that we weren't just as heartsick as our sweet omega was, but it's always nice to have confirmation that you're not the only one who feels completely lost without the other half of their soul.

" Well, I missed both of you, too, " Remus says, picking up the shoe Hayley was in the process of putting on Tess when we interrupted them. " Can you hold onto this until we get home? "

"I thought we were getting food?" Tess says, her blonde brows pinching together as her blue eyes narrow on us.

She can be quite ferocious when she wants to be, and Remus is rooting for her to have a beast when she reaches maturity. I don't want that for her because it comes with its own host of problems, but she'll at least have us to help her through it if she does.

She'd be so strong, though. Already fierce, more fierce, just like me.

" How about we stop and pick up food on our way home? " Remus says. " I need my girls at home tonight, is that okay? "

Tess closes her eyes like she's thinking really hard about his proposition. "Momma said I could play with Evie and Jas."

" I'll set up a playdate tomorrow, " Remus says, ready to bargain with our daughter until they both end up happy. " Princess party? "

Tess's eyes open, sparkling wildly like she's gotten exactly what she wanted. "Fine. But only if there's a princess party."

" You got it, " Remus says, kissing the top of her head, making her giggle as he closes the door. Hayley wraps her arms around us, pressing her body into ours, and reminding us that we don't like going even a day without our omega in some way.

"Sorry, we weren't here," Hayley says, tilting her neck to the side and submitting to Remus. She's doing it purely voluntarily because he hasn't let up on the purring since he saw them. Remus dips his mouth to his bite and kisses it.

" You should always be with me, " he murmurs, keeping his hands in respectful places because even though he wants to rut Hayley out here in the open, our daughter has a perfect view of our chest and down from the window.

"Let's get home, and we can watch a movie," Hayley says.

She knows full well that Remus loves movie nights because he gets to be squished between his two favorite people while they both snuggle into him.

If he's lucky, they both fall asleep too, and then he gets to watch over them all night.

Those nights also end with our body being exhausted the next day because even though I might sleep, Remus will stay awake to watch over them.

A second car pulls up to the curb behind us, and Remus immediately gets his hackles all raised.

Ignore him.

No.

It always ends the same. You two just need to kiss and make up at this point.

Fuck you. You want to kiss him so bad, you take over and do it.

I laugh at Remus in our mind as he moves to stand between our girls and the alpha that just got out of the car behind us. Neither of us says anything to the other, but he lets his beast out just to fuck with Remus, and it does what he intended.

Our purr ceases as Remus growls loud enough that I'm sure everyone at the dinner table knows Hazel's here now.

The beta hops out of the car, ignoring the warning growl from the alpha she came with.

His golden eyes turn back to their natural shade as he sighs and jogs around the car to catch up with Hazel.

He doesn't say anything to us, and Remus sure as hell isn't going to say anything to him.

"You two need to get over it," Hayley laughs, tugging on our forearm and pulling our attention back to her. "You stalked me, or did you forget about that?"

" That was different, " Remus says, snapping his teeth and preening a little when Hayley tilts her neck for him again.

"Sure it was, Remus," Hayley says, laughing and patting his chest. "Now, can you please take us home so I can make up for all the alone time we missed out on this weekend?"

Remus goes still for a second, our body responding to our sweet omega in an instant.

" Devious girl, " Remus tells her, opening the passenger door for her and buckling her in faster than he has before.

We purr as we head home, the sound still just as terrible as the first time we used it, but it comforts the two people we need it to comfort, and so we'll keep using it forever.

It's the same purr Hayley fell in love with, the one I've only ever used for her and now our daughter, and it's the one that makes them both feel safe.

I'm no longer embarrassed by it, because it soothes the ones I care about most.

We smile as we look in the rearview mirror, our daughter staring out the window, chattering on about what they did this weekend. Our omega squeezes our fingers together, her scent filling the air. Being with both my girls, we're reminded once again that we have everything we never knew we needed.